Developing English Language Learning Materials, Thesis of English Language

Download Developing English Language Learning Materials and more Thesis English Language in PDF only on Docsity! DEVELOPING ESP TEXTBOOK FOR CULINARY SKILLS PROGRAM OF VOCATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL USING TASK-BASED LANGUAGE TEACHING Novitasari', Joko Nurkamto’, Diah Kristiana?” English Education Department of Graduate School Sebelas Maret University Novitasari.blossom@yahoo.co.id ABSTRACT This research aims at developing English for Specific Purposes (ESP) textbook to fulfil the students’ need toward the material at vocational high school using Task-based. Language Teaching (TBLT). It was conducted to investigate (1) the quality of the existing course book used in vocational high school, (2) the development of the ESP textbook using TBLT in vocational high school in Pacitan, East Java. The research design used in this research is Research and Development (R&D) proposed by Borg and Gall. This study was oriented to the product development in the form of procedural model and was conducted in two main phases namely (1) exploration phase and (2) product development phase. The exploration phase revealed: (1) the description of the existing course book used in vocational high school and (2) the need analysis of the ESP learning material. While the product development phase explained; (1) the description of the draft of ESP textbook, (2) the result of the trial of the draft, and (3) the final draft of ESP textbook. The data in the exploration stage were collected through conducting document analysis, and having interview. It was carried out to reveal the quality of existing course book used at vocational high school and the learner’s need toward material. The findings show that the course book used at the vocational high school students contains general English material and it is less specific to be used for the students of culinary skill program Hence, the findings imply the ESP textbook was needed to be developed by considering the need of the teacher and the students. The ESP textbook was developed by considering some aspects. It contains theoretical theories of ESP and TBLT. Then, it was validated and reviewed by some experts on English language teaching and implemented in class. Through conducting observation, distributing questionnaire, and having focus group discussion that involved the researcher, the teacher, the expert and the students, the draft was revised to be the final draft of ESP textbook. Therefore, after going through the stages, it could be said that the draft is feasible to be applied as supplementary material to teach students of culinary skills program in vocational high school. Keywords: ESP, TBLT, textbook, research and development study INTRODUCTION As stated in article 15 of National Educational System Act Number 20/2003, a vocational school is one of the educational units that prepare their students to work on specific skills. It means that they work on one specification due to the skill program they are taking. What the students get from the school is everything related to their future profession that will help them cope with the real working situations. Pusdiknakes (2006) conducted a study that shows that most of graduate students of SMK cannot adapt with the developing of science and technology easily. The finding also shows that many of the graduate students of SMK cannot be employed in working place because they do not have good competence which meets the job demand. BNP2TKI (2010) also states that many of them cannot be formal TKI overseas because they do not have good competence in English. The realities in the field also show that there are some problems occurred in the teaching and learning process in SMK. The student’s ability in English subject is still low moreover when they have to deal with the clients or customer. Lo (2012) states that the research on English for Specific Purposes (ESP) has been attracting a great deal of attention in English language education over the past two decades. However, most studies focus on ESP learners at the university or in the workplace, while little attention has been paid to vocational education learners. He adds that that in Taiwan, vocational high school (VHS) students have long been considered low achievers in English, lacking Basic English proficiency and motivation for learning English. That condition is the same with in Indonesian vocational high school. The recent English teaching in the vocational high school does not yet lead to the application of specific English mastery for its learners. The English teaching mostly learn about general English. Based on the interview with the English teachers in a vocational high school in Pacitan, East Java, it was found that the students of culinary skills program still learn General English whereas it cannot fulfil their needs to have good competence in English to support their future job. Recently, there are many English course books for the students of vocational high schools. Some books that are often used by English teacher are Global Access, English for Vocational High School, Interchange, and Get Along with English. Those books have their own strengths and weaknesses. Each of them promotes different approach and also interesting topic and display. Although there are Many course books published with different kinds of approach offered, language practitioners often choose a course book based on_ cursory impressionistic evaluations (Tomlinson, 2008) and practical factors unrelated to pedagogy. As the result, the course books sometimes are not appropriate exactly with the students’ need. Cunningworth (1995) says that there is no course book designed for a general market will absolutely match with specific learners. Therefore there will never be perfect teaching /learning materials that can be used anywhere, anytime for the same level of students. Consequently, English material should material and practice bound into a book. Harwood (2005) says that textbooks in the field of English for academic purposes can help teachers develop but only when they are properly based on research, and contain what they should. Textbook is a key component in most language programs. There are some experts who define textbook in different ways. Cunningsworth (1995) says that textbooks are an effective resource for self-directed learning, an effective resource for presenting materials by the teachers, a source of ideas and activities, a reference source for students, a syllabus that reflects pre- determined learning objectives, and support for less experienced teachers who have yet to gain in confidence. In line with him, Hedge and Whitney (1996) claim a textbook as ‘an organized and pre-packed set of teaching- learning material’ and it is the basis for the language input and practice learners receive. In addition, Tarigan and Tarigan (2009) add that textbook is a book for certain subject which is designed by some experts to achieve some instructional goals equipped by learning media so it can be easily understood by the school users and therefore it can support a teaching program. ESP textbook is one of learning materials used to achieve the goal of a program, in this case, the culinary skills program in vocational high school. Materials are an important element within the curriculum and the most tangible and visible aspect of it (Nunan, 1991). This is in line with Richards’ statement (2001) that instructional materials generally serve as the basis for much of the language input that learners receive and the language practice that occurs in the classroom. In short, materials are everything used by teacher or learners in the teaching and learning process that give students’ opportunities to practice the language and improve their language knowledge. It means that materials play important role in teaching learning process, especially English teaching. Riazi (2003) “textbooks play a very crucial role in the believes that realm of language teaching and learning and they are considered the next important factors in the second/foreign language classroom after the teacher”. In line with the Riazi, Noordin and Samad (2003) say materials and textbooks are the important resources for teachers in assisting students to learn English. Textbooks because they are the most suitable survive means of providing the inputs for a teaching-learning system A_ textbook demanded by the qauwriculum must satisfy the needs of students as learners of English. mentioned that the connection between Cunningsworth (1995) textbooks and teachers would be efficient for language classrooms when their objectives could respond to the teachers’ goals and answer the learners’ needs. The information on course book selection is useful since it is sometimes ESL/EFL responsibility to select the course book part of the teacher’s she/he will use in a given class. Sometimes they do not consider the usefulness of the material to the students. If it is regarded useful, sometimes the students find many difficulties in understanding and implementing for their daily life. Hersulastuti (2012) says that teacher should have critical analysis and be accurate in selecting the appropriate book used for students in teaching and learning process. If a teacher has to use a course book for some reason, still she has to adjust it with the target learners. RESEARCH METHOD In education field, R&D usually develops a learning product that relates to curriculum, syllabus, and learning material. Gall, Gall and Borg (2003) describe the purpose of R&D as “...to design new products and procedures, which then are systematically field tested, evaluated and refined until they meet specified criteria of effectiveness, quality, or similar standard”. The product is developed by considering to the strength and weakness of existing material and relevant principal theories in order to produce an appropriate learning material based on user context. Actually there are ten steps proposed by Borg and Gall (1983). However, the steps proposed by Borg and Gall is modified into two big stages namely exploration and developing stage. Exploration Stage The purpose of this stage was to set up a base of theory, to analyze the existing condition related to the study in this case, the learning material especially course book in vocational high school in Pacitan, East Java and to conduct need assessment related to the model proposed by the researcher. The strategy used in this exploration stage is explanation descriptive study. This study got result about the description about existing problem and finally the researcher interpreted it into general conclusion. The research in this phase was conducted at in vocational high school in Pacitan, East Java. It has six skills program classes that focus on tourism and technology. The research in this stage was carried out from January to August 2013. The data in this stage are some information about English course book used in vocational high school, the features on the book, and need assessment of learner's need. The data were collected through conducting some collecting techniques such as having interview twice with the English teacher, observing the teaching and learning process once, and analyzing document, in this case, course book. The technique of triangulation is used to make the result valid Burns (1999) states that triangulation is a way of arguing that if different methods of investigation produce the same result then the data are likely to be valid. It is conducted through collecting the same kind of data from different resources. From this research, the researchers obtained qualitative. Qualitative analysis used is an interactive analysis model developed by Miles and Huberman in Moloeng (2005), which consists of 3 components namely. data reduction, data display, and verification. Developing Stage The time of the research in this stage was on September-November 2013. The place of the research in this stage is in vocational high school in Pacitan, East Java) The try out was conducted at class XI JBG 1 that consisted of 33 students. The purpose of the study was to get feasibility of model draft developed in previous stage. The question that should be answered was whether the model can be applied well in the field. The feasibility can be gained from practical side, time, students’ response, and the impact to the teaching and learning process. Draft model is prototype that should be tried out and tested in the field empirically to get constant model. After prototype of ESP textbook for culinary skills program of the eleventh grade in vocational high school in Pacitan, East Java by using task-based language learning was tried out in the class, some evaluation was resulted then the researcher revised it in order to result a qualified final product. The development was carried out through conducting try out the draft in the class. The trial of the draft was implemented three times. It was carried out based on need both in limited setting or wider setting. The data resource of this research is the subject where the data taken from and the teaching process when the draft was implemented. There some data resources of this research. The data are collected through same ways such as having focus group discussion with the resources namely English teachers and students of culinary skills program in the end of each tial. It was carried out to get evaluation toward. the implementation of the draft in the class, observing the teaching process. It was conducted to know whether the ESP textbook is applicable in the class, and istributing some questionnaires in the end of trial. It was carried out to know Experts’ Evaluation Revision 3. Revise the 3. Some incorrect grammar and grammar capital font. mistakes were 4. Exploit more revised. on listening 4. The listening task task. were exploited more 5. Provide 5. Table of contents preface and was included table of contents. After revising the draft and it was approved by the experts, the trial was conducted by implementing the draft of ESP textbook in the class. It was conducted to get the feasibility of the product. The result of the trial was the data about the feasibility of ESP textbook in English teaching and learning process. There are three techniques in collecting data; observation, FGD, and questionnaire. Data about the teaching learning process was collected by using passive participant technique. During the implementation, the researcher observed the cassroom activities. The teaching learning process was observed and analyzed to be evaluated. FGD with the teacher, the expert and students was conducted to reflect the implementation of each try out. This discussion aimed to evaluate the implementation of the draft draft in the class. The evaluation of try out 1 until 3 can be summarized as follows. Table 2 Summary of Try-out Try-out Evaluation Revision Try-out 1. Task 2 was 1. Task 2 should 1 too difficult. be provided by the text. 2. Task answer 2. The audio was for task 4 replaced with was too video. long. 3. The 3. The vocabularies vocabulary were replaced in task 6 was too difficult with the easy ones and the and the dialogue was situational given a context was situation. not clear. Try-out 1. The students 1. The teacher 2 got difficulty explanation on grammar could be (direct and supported by indirect the explanation speech). from video. 2. Task 7 was 2. Task 7 was confusing. It revised into task was no that is similar based. on with the example example given. given. The video still can be adapted to culinary field and therefore it can still be used. Try-out The video of 3 job interview had not been appropriate with culinary. After the draft was implemented in the development stage for three times, there are some strengths and weaknesses that can be identified. The following are the strengths of the ESP textbook book: a. This book can develop the communicative competence because it provides some tasks that give the students opportunities to learn four language skills and practice them in real world context. Authentic inputs were given and the students also have to be engaged in real world activities related to the inputs. For instance, when the students were given curriculum vitae, they had to write them as what they do in the real life. b. Different learning techniques can be applied in this book because it is quite flexible to accommodate them. The tasks in this book can be exploited more based on students’ ability and teaching situation in the class. It can also be supported by video or other authentic materials. c. Tasks in the ESP textbook can make the students active in participating in the learning process. They will be more motivated because what they learn is something that they do in real life and what they need in the future job. d. ESP textbook can be used as supplementary book because the course book used is too general. It was developed by using learners’ needs as well as the learning needs toward the English teaching and learning process, and then proposing the effective English learning materials based on the needs. The ESP textbook does not only have strengths but also have some weaknesses. The weaknesses of this book can be described as follows: a. It needs more preparation to use this book such as media and properties. Those media and properties are useful to support the students’ understanding toward the material. The teacher also needs to have good knowledge about culinary field, master the material and has good ability in managing the class. She should play good role as learning resources, facilitator, motivator, supervisor, etc. The students and the teacher have the inseparable roles in the class. The roles for them are interchangeable; when the students are being active in the task, then the teacher comes with the control to the students and so on. This book was developed based on KTSP whereas since this year the government has been applying Kurikulum 13 for the first grade students and therefore it has out of date curriculum if it is used for the later second’ grade ___ students. However, the teacher still can adapt the book because the content of the book does not have a big different from the new curriculum. It does not contain all materials for the first semester. Actually there are five indicators of basic competence to be achieved but the book only contains three of them. There was no review test in the end of the unit and thus the teacher should make by herself a test to review the material in each unit. CONCLUSION, IMPLICATION, AND SUGGESTION Conclusion There are maany teaching components for the successful of English learning such as method, material, media, teacher, students, etc. All of them become synergy to support each other in the teaching learning process. Course book is one of teaching components that plays important role to provide materials for students which can be used to achieve the goal of English teaching and learning process in the class. Based on the research findings, the researcher found out that the course book used in vocational high school in Pacitan, East Java has not provided appropriate material needed by the vocational students especially for culinary skills program. The English teacher uses “Get Along with English” as course book for all skill programs in that school. After the course book was analysed based on some guideline, it was found out that the content of book contains general English material and therefore it is not appropriate with the students’ skills program. Based on that problem, there should be an effort to improve the quality of English teaching and learning. Therefore the researcher developed ESP textbook to provide supplementary material for second grade students of culinary skills program in vocational high school in Pacitan, East Java. It was expected that the material can support the existing course book used at that school. Need analysis was conducted to know the students’ need toward material and what kind of specific learning material is needed. The researcher had interview with the English teacher and distributed the questionnaire to get the information before developing the draft. The result of need analysis shows that the students need English learning material that relates to their skills program They will use English when they work in the future for handling customers in restaurant or other working places. The specific explanation about the result of need analysis was discussed in the previous chapter. Based on research findings in the exploration stage, some information was gained to develop the draft of ESP textbook that can be used as supplementary material in order to make the English teaching and learning more effective. TBLT was chosen as approach to be applied in developing the draft. 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